This another one of those quick posts, but I had a big favor to ask of anyone who comes across this post.

I’ve started a gaming channel on YouTube wherein I plan to record myself playing video games, but also do several game guides/tutorials/tip videos.
I plan on focusing more on Terraria, but I’ll definitely try to vary my work.

Anywyay, please check it out and please pass it around and rate/comment/subscribe. I’ve just started and I put out a video yesterday.

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post for quite some time now. I can never get around to it while I’m on the computer, so I’m writing this from my mobile through the most simplistic m.website ever – m.wordpress.com.

Since I last reported here I turned 18, which is sort of a human milestone, I guess. I can now get arrested, vote and do all kinds of grown-up-y stuff. Hooray!

I’ve also gotten my hands on the limited edition of Skyward Sword which is bloody amazing and I’m nearing its completion, which makes me sad (I may write down my thoughts on it when I do finish the game), also the Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time + Master Quest. It’s a good time to be a Zelda geek. Now I just need to get my hands on the wonderful Hyrule Historia, which you should google, because I can’t link it through this interface. It basically explains the Zelda timeline (ZOMG) and has 240 pages of sheer concept art glory. Unfortunately, it’s currently a Japan-only release (similar to the golden Nunchuck that pairs with the Skyward Sword’s special golden Wiimote, obtainable through the Ninty Club shop – discount if you register your SS copy), so here’s to hoping for an international release. *crosses fingers*

Now, you must be wondering what this has to do with the funny-lookin’ title I’ve gave this post. There is no relation between all of the ^above^ and the title whatsoever. None.

So what *is* is about? (I can’t also use things like italic and bold, hence the *’s)

Four months ago, on the 14th of September I picked up my 6th musical instrument – the (transverse) flute.

It has been my favorite instrument to listen to for many years, but I had never ever picked it up. A now-very-good-friend of mine lent me his flute on that day, and has been kind enough to give me some tips and literature. This, allied with my extensive research that I do when I want to know about something makes for a pretty decent beginner-intermediate fautist, and I am proud. Ish.
Today marks the 4th mensiversary that I play the flute. And yay to that.

The whole internets were buzzing about NiGHTS, it was amazing! SEGA, of everyone else, posted a picture of NiGHTS on their Facebook. Here’s what the description said:

To our wonderful NiGHTS fans – we haven’t forgotten that today is the 15th anniversary of NiGHTS, so happy 15th anniversary to NiGHTS and huge thank you! to everyone for supporting the character and game for all these years! How would you feel about seeing the original “NiGHTS into dreams…” being re-released? Also, if you think this is a good idea… which platform do you think NiGHTS should be released in? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Yeah, SEGA said that. How cool is that?!

As I’ve mentioned before, NiGHTS into dreams is sort of a cult classic game and, as such, it’s far from main stream. However, that didn’t keep that photo from having more comments and likes than anything else that SEGA has posted in the past 2 months in the least amount of time (including Sonic Generations, the new Sonic game, coming out. Hell yeah).

The NiGHTS community in itself is relatively small. But if you ask the whole internet, there’s no way they’re going to sit quiet. And that picture’s the result.

I don’t think the jester’s got anything to worry about for the time being.

Filipe Monteiro

P.S.: Check out Lucid Dreaming, the NiGHTS remix album! All the information you need is on their website! My ears are smiling with glee ^^

Now that’s one of the best video games out there, and it is now considered a cult classic. It came out in 1996 for the Sega Saturn, made by SEGA and Sonic Team and kinda had its release shadowed by Super Mario 64.
As the name might suggest, the game is about dreams and nightmares. You control a genderless dream creature called NiGHTS.

Here’s the gist: Nightopia (dream world) is in danger. Wizeman (that’s the bad guy) is becoming more powerful through dream energy he steals from humans up in the ‘real’ world. Wizeman’s goal is world domination, essentially, and as his power grows, the easier he can enter our world, where he would face no resistance. Our two heroes (Elliot and Claris) are ‘called’ by NiGHTS, who they meet in their dreams. Alongside NiGHTS, the dreamers will fight through dreams and nightmares and restore balance to Nightopia and consequently save the world (while finding courage and trust in themselves).

The game itself is in 2.5D, meaning that it is a side-scroller 3D game (it does has a few 3rd person sections but they’re not very relevant – they are well done, as is the whole game, from a technical standpoint). It can be classified as an arcade game, since you can play it in small bursts of time, trying to rack up more points, links and what have you.

So, why am I suddenly making a post about some game that almost no one knows about? Well, yeh, that’s the thing. “If you ain’t in the know, better get to know!”

NiGHTS’ 15th birthday is tomorrow, July the 5th! And the big master folks over at the NiGHTS into dreams fan community website have directed countless campaigns to promote the purple jester guy and they have something big in store for they’re 15th birthday. They have a certain ease of contacting SEGA, the owners of NiGHTS and they’re organizing a campaign which you can find over at the NiD15 website. So what’s the goal of this campaign? To raise the maximum number of votes to make a port available for next-gen consoles.

Actually, the game already had a port, a few years back, for the PS2. Trouble is… Japan-only release.

Anyway, as a community, we want to bump it up to next-gen consoles and make the game available for a larger audience. There’s a lot of people who have benefited from playing the game, myself included, and it’s an experience that we can share with each other. So that’s why I’m passing this on to you guys.

Pimp the site as much as you can. Share it on forums, Twitter, Facebook, the YouTubes, whatever. We want SEGA not to forget NiGHTS. Click the little button that says vote.

Do it for the community. Do it for NiGHTS.

It’ll be his birthday present.

Thanks DiGi and TRiPPY (they’re the big honchos over at the NiD community) for the beast of an internet community you’ve created here.

woke up early
hung around the internet in the morning
had lunch with the family
wrote two blog posts from my history blog (deadline:tomorrow)
played a bit of piano
continued writing
got a movie to see with the siblings
composed a new instrumental on the guitar
had dinner
watched (500) days of summer
wrote this post.

I usually don’t watch the cerimony, anyways. It’s never compelled me enough for me to want to watch it. And this year was no exception.

According to what I’ve read, the show was a bit of a bust, with failed humor attempts, offensive-ish jokes and James Franco’s ‘interesting’ outfit. I don’t particularly care about that. Which was why it was such a cool surprise to see that my oldest older sister had put a sheet of paper with the Oscars’ results taped to the door of the fridge, the next morning. I read it attentively, nodding ‘yes’, or ‘no’. Mostly ‘no’s.

Alright, so I’ll jump to the movies I did see. Those were, in chronological order of my viewing, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, THE GHOST WRITER, TOY STORY 3, INCEPTION, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, BLACK SWAN and THE KING’S SPEECH.

Right, so HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON got exactly two nominations and won neither one. I’d very much liked if it’d won best Original Score, because John Powell did a very — very — good job in nailing every key moments, which I didn’t particularly think of Reznor and Ross’s work on THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Good soundtrack work nonetheless.

Now, is it just me, or I didn’t see THE GHOST WRITER anywhere? No nominations whatsoever. Shame. I really liked that movie, apart from the last 10 seconds.

Now, TOY STORY 3, was, predictably enough, the winner for Best Animated Feature. No surprise there, PIXAR usually likes to makes good movies. It was a great tie-in conclusion and, by far, the best trilogy finale ever.

INCEPTION I liked a lot. The whole realm of dreams and subconscious — psychological stuff — is something that almost always amuses me in some way, shape or form. After seeing it, I almost thought it was going to replace STAR WARS as my favorite movie of all time but, then again, I’m still a ner–geek. Plus, its hype kinda went away after not too long. For me it did, at least. A very DARK KNIGHT-ish film. Above everything else, incredible sound work. I mean, seriously, did anyone listen to that movie? It’s high-up there with JPI for me (yeah, I know). The VFX work was very realistic and it didn’t jump out as “Oh, that’s CG, shut up”. For the most part it didn’t, anyways.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK was very surprisingly an amazing film for me. The script was very intelligent and I thought the pacing was very good for the kind of movie that it is. Also, very good division of emotions. There are some movies that kind of make you not know what to expect of them. Is it a funny moment, a cry-your-eyes-out moment? This one was very good in comedic timing and when it was serious, it was serious. The transitions of emotions were also very slick and smooth like butter, what with the conversations being really well-written as, well, real conversations.

Now, as for BLACK SWAN. Man, this was one of the first movies I’ve seen in a long time that makes me instantly (read: after going “What?” a few times) love it and want to watch it several several times. It was beautifully shot (oh my God, the opening scene) and very very well edited. The pacing was amazing and it gave you just enough to follow the plot without completely losing yourself to the psychologically intense plot. Well, I liked it for that, anyways. It’s a damn shame it didn’t win any Oscars (excluding Portman’s Leading Actress one, but that’s not exactly for the film itself) and, with THE SOCIAL NETWORK, it was really hard giving it the Editing Oscar (I’d pick it for Cinematography, as well, had it not been the year beautiful INCEPTION). Very close call on that one. The VFX, when there, were also stellar. I wouldn’t have minded one bit if it had won Best Film but, sure, it kinda was a horror film, and some of the shots were just a lil’ bit like porn. Come on.

As for this year’s Best Picture award, THE KING SPEECH earned it, as Hollywood does like movies with a message. Which this did, a lot. I watched it last Saturday. Loved the writing, very quality work, there. The cinematography had its moments. Some good, some just god-awful. Well who didn’t see it win?

All-in-all, these were the most predictable Oscars. Ever. I’ll have to watch the show, sometime.

Hi, everyone. My name is Filipe Monteiro, I am what you could call a modern jack-of-all trades. I’m a filmmaker, a writer, a musician, a photographer, Christian and a Geek.

I’m a Geek about gaming, movies, the Legend of Zelda franchise, the Tomb Raider franchise, and Star Wars. Sometimes I just like to think about what Link could do in an adventure, or how a tomb could be remade, our how the Falcon is impractical from a driver’s standpoint. I also like to think about Link, fighting his way through a tomb, running away from the Rancor.

Anyways, I’ve picked up the art of photography last summer, and you can check some of my work – my portfolio, as it were – at my photography blog, Pleonasm.

I’ve chosen to move from Tumblr to WordPress because I feel that, in here, I have a lot more freedom to do what I want with my blog, and I feel a larger sense of community. You can follow me on Twitter if you want to know what I’m up to. Things like projects, stuff I’m working on, things I like end up there like ants on sugar.